The Iranian Revolution embarrassed and humiliated U.S. President Jimmy Carter and contributed to his electoral defeat in 1980. President Ronald Reagan’s attempt to fund the right-wing contra rebels in Nicaragua by selling arms to revolutionary Iran nearly capsized his presidency in the mid-1980s. Ever since, U.S. foreign-policy makers have seemed convinced that Iran is a toxic quagmire, or what Kaye calls an “abnormal state” impervious to conventional diplomacy and responsive only to coercion.